It may have taken him a few tries, but it looks like marriage finally agrees with Steve Earle. I’ve seen him a bunch of times, but rarely looking as ebullient as tonight, a factor we can only attribute to the presence of his touring partner, collaborator and wife, Allison Moorer – also, one suspects, the reason behind the set-listing of tunes like ‘Sparkle And Shine’, ‘Days Aren’t Long Enough’ and ‘Come Home To Me’. For a man with the disposition of a big old bear, Steve is an impeccable crafter of love songs.
He’s always a solid live proposition too, although this writer must confess, the last time I saw him with the Dukes in the Olympia, I feared his sidemen had become too limited by country rock chops, and you could feel their boss chomping at the bit. He found new territory on last year’s Washington Square Serenade, splicing John King’s blocky beats with his own songcraft. It’s a combination that works about half the time tonight (Steve’s fast and loose strum-hand occasionally frays against the strict discipline imposed by the loops, and ‘Guitar Town’ was an unaccountable misfire), but the important thing is he looks rejuvenated. It doesn’t hurt that Moorer – who concluded her own set with a stunning version of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ – is a fine vocal and visual foil.
Despite the partisan crowd, Earle took no chances, frontloading the first solo half-hour with ‘The Devil’s Right Hand’, ‘My Old Friend The Blues’, ‘Someday’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘South Nashville Blues’ and the Death Row testimonial ‘Billy Austin’. The beats worked best when they leaned on old-time swing rather than syncopation (‘Jericho Road’, Tom Waits’s ‘Way Down In The Hole’), but that said, a tabla tattoo transformed the raga-rock of ‘Transcendental Blues’, while the pumping ‘Satellite Radio’, ‘Steve’s Hammer’, ‘Galway Girl’ and a cover of The Pogues’ ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ sealed the populist vote.
It was a night of songs about drugs, guns, murder and love, rendered on acoustic, national steel guitar, decks, mandolin, and “the kind of banjo that scares the sheep in Donegal.” Steve’s happy, we’re happy, everybody wins.